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Hop Beer

A simple beer made by boiling hops, water, brown sugar, and fermenting with yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Hops and sugar work together. They rank in the top 43% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Hop Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

  1. Boil the hops and water together for 45 minutes.

  2. Add the brown sugar and stir until dissolved.

  3. Strain the mixture into a bowl or tub.

  4. When lukewarm, add the yeast.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Let it work for 48 hours.

  2. Skim well.

  3. Strain into bottles or a small cask.

  4. Cork securely.

  5. Let it sit for a few days before using.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Hops + sugartop 43% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Hops
Provide the bitterness and aroma that give the beer its characteristic flavour.
Brown sugar
Supplies the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing alcohol and carbonation during the working period.

The step that matters

Add the yeast only when lukewarm. Yeast is killed by high heat, so adding it to hot liquid can stop fermentation. Waiting until the wort is lukewarm keeps the yeast alive to work.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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